Bump (YC S09) Raises $16 Million Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/10/bump-raises-16-million-round-led-by-andreessen-horowitz/

by atularora • 16 years ago

58 26 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

magicseth3• 16 years ago

Bump is YC09, for those who don't know.

chailatte3• 16 years ago

What do they need that much money for? It's a simple contact sharing app. And how will they make money?

Foodspotting also got 3M today, for a simple photo sharing app that has no revenue model.

This bubble is very close to bursting. Too bad for those pension funds and university endowments.

yan• 16 years ago

I doubt it's just a contact-sharing app, I think they've branched out (or always intended?) to creating a generic platform for exchanging information with people standing next to you.

magicseth3• 16 years ago

Indeed, you can now share with any other user you are friends with, whether or not you are physically near each other.

ABrandt• 16 years ago

This bubble is very close to bursting.

I'm sorry but the bubble banter seems to have gotten a little out of hand. Yes, there seems to be a rise in startups receiving high profile investments. Yes, the flow of acquisitions has increased lately. But this talk of a bubble seems little more than fear mongering to me. Concentrate on the things that truly matter and if there's a bubble, you'll likely weather it in one piece.

chailatte3• 16 years ago

There are way too many content sharing apps out there attracting attention right now, even though Stumbleupon or Facebook or even Twitter can just overtake the entire market overnight. That to me, along with the overvaluation and lack of revenue models, tells me this is a bubble, and it will not end well.

base• 16 years ago

you could say something similar about twitter not so long ago. It's a lot about expectations of what can possibly be.

elviejo• 16 years ago

That sentence sounds precisely like "bubble-talk" to me.

When expectations matter a lot more than actual revenue is when we start to be in trouble.

I don't know if twitter is making money or not yet. Youtube is barely providing profits for Google. Digg didn't make money for yahoo. Facebook we don't have real numbers yet. (rumor says they are profitable).

jkincaid• 16 years ago

Check out the post for some of their plans. They're looking to become a platform for helping businesses/bands/venues connect with patrons.

TomOfTTB2• 16 years ago

" This bubble is very close to bursting. Too bad for those pension funds and university endowments. "

Not even close.

As someone who lived through the very end (and hence the worst of it) I think this does mark the return of the bubble. Bump is a nice idea but they've now raised $3 per active user and still have no real path to revenue. That's bubble mentality.

BUT at least Bump is a good idea. Good ideas that VCs over estimate is the beginning of a bubble not the end of it. Its when ideas like ecommerce stores that just sell pet food or devices that allow web sites to smell start popping up. That's when its about to burst

chailatte3• 16 years ago

Yes, during normal times. However, we're in a global economic recession, where most countries are bankrupt and overnight any country/US state can default on their debt, causing massive failures in many markets. Any other bubble bursting (education, real estate, stock market, government debt) can cause the other bubbles to burst right away.

magicseth3• 16 years ago

In my opinion, as a Bump developer, a lot of the negative comments reflect our biggest problem: branding. In many people's minds, Bump is a nothing but a contact-sharing app. Long ago contacts were eclipsed by the many other types of things that Bump lets you share. The people who are downloading the app are using it in ways that we couldn't imagine when building initial version. The app's "gimmick" of bumping is still an incredibly useful, and admittedly fun, way of establishing a connection between two strangers, or even two of your own devices.

Obviously, my views are biased, but it is quite clear to me (and our users) that Bump is more than just a contact-sharing app.

snprbob86• 16 years ago

The bumping gimmick and the rest of the app has a learning curve. It's not particularly steep, but it is steep enough to prevent me from ever trying it with anyone new.

I've tried to use Bump on a few occasions and every time I encountered two problems:

1) App says: "Please bump again". People tend to not want to physically smack two expensive objects together, so they shake em at one another. Timing issues, connectivity issues, and just general coordination issues make this particularly awkward.

2) Other bumper says: "Wait? I didn't actually share anything?" The sharing selection UI was needlessly confusing. Granted, it only shared contacts when I tried it.

Seeing as I had no idea I could share anything other than contacts, I just downloaded the latest version and looked through it. The whole concept of checking off a bunch of boxes before bumping seems strange. I don't have anyone to bump with right this moment, but it would seem preferable to bump first, send/receive data one bit at a time, then disconnect. Rather than make a big bundle of selections and issue a transaction.

EDIT: And regarding contact sharing in particular, I actually really like business cards. I almost always carry a pen and having a physical token in my wallet is a great follow up reminder for later. However, I get annoyed when people don't have any whitespace on their cards for notes!

nopassrecover• 16 years ago

I'd love to "bump" cash registers for my receipts (straight to an accounting app).

thinkcomp• 16 years ago

We're working on this with FaceCash.

ajslater• 16 years ago

They license their technology to PayPal, and perhaps others. What the rev deal is, I have no idea.

comatose_kid• 16 years ago

We are hiring.

I've worked at Bump for about a year and a half - the classic 'work from the founder's kitchen' story...

I really enjoy coming to work here. Why?

Because the work is engrossing - there are more interesting things to work on here than I have time for.

Because our team works well together - it is a low-ego environment, and we are all focused on building cool stuff.

Because our hardware procurement process consists of mentioning what we need to Andy (our procurement officer/CTO) and shiny things magically appear on our desk within days.

Because our offices are custom-made: http://imgur.com/qZAc6 (ha!)

Please check out our jobs page: http://bu.mp/jobs

Or email me; see my profile.

veb• 16 years ago

$16 million? I'd be happy with a $50k investment...

jgilliam• 16 years ago

The article says they are going to put physical stations in venues that people can "bump." I love that idea. Making it a physical act that other people can see is really smart. The activity isn't just happening on the phone, it's happening in the real world, people are literally bumping into things.

jzting• 16 years ago

congrats, guys!

zaidf• 16 years ago

I am visiting India surrounded by over a dozen cousins in 5-15 age range. All but a few are hooked to Bump independently(not through me). One evening the kids literally went door to door in our large extended family searching for iPhones to put the app on.

Seeing such crazy adoption, I wanted to see what they really dig about it. So I tried to played a sucker and kept asking them "Bump sucks, why would you even use it?". Their response: "picture sharing is sooo fast; its quicker than even sms; its just awesome" followed by "want me to put it on your iphone?" :)

Pretty cool!

ThomPete• 16 years ago

Linkedin should buy Bumb

Bump (YC S09) Raises $16 Million Round Led By Andreessen Horowitz

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